


Pulse

by Recluse



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Flippy Quadrant, Kismesis, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-12
Updated: 2012-07-12
Packaged: 2017-11-09 19:24:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/457492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Recluse/pseuds/Recluse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Also an older fic I figured I'd post here.</p></blockquote>





	Pulse

It doesn't start out meaning anything.  
  
Really, when it starts, all he's looking for is something to do. Something to take his mind off sorting through timelines and outrunning Jack.  
  
Bickering, bickering, bickering, the whole meteor is singing it, that is, if the whole meteor was made up of Karkat Vantas, who snaps and growls and hisses at Dave who messes with him, Dave who flips pointy little word shards in his face.  
  
Dave smirks every time, and everyday the strangled cry of 'SHUT THE FUCK UP, FOR GOD'S SAKE STRIDER, DO YOU EVER CLOSE THOSE UNFORTUNATE FLAPS OF YOURS? IS YOUR WASTE CHUTE WHERE YOUR HUMAN 'MOUTH' IS SUPPOSED TO BE?' comes from somewhere in the meteor, be it by the windows or in the hallway or, on the really unlucky days(for everyone else that is, Dave loves these days the most), where Karkat screams it in the dining hall.  
  
It goes on for a full year, and it becomes routine for him, to sit down and think of new ways to burn Vantas and make him scream(which he always does, and it's always a variation of the same thing), but something changes when they begin to verbally spar in ways that aren't short and sharp and completely painless, when they begin to battle using things that  _hurt_ , it becomes something almost smooth, like a pulse that flows from one to the other, and somehow that makes it much more important. There are days when Dave loses, loses his momentum against Karkat for even just a second, and those days are, are strange and difficult for him to take in, but they spark something else in him, something that Rose calls 'the competitive spirit' and he takes more time in crafting the perfect rhymes, the perfect ways to, he knows, piss Karkat off. He puts effort into analyzing the little things that Karkat does, the ways to tell when he's calm or put off, the ways that Gamzee has rubbed off on him, the fine little details that litter his rhymes with gold.  
  
He's unaware that something like that is unusual, and he's further unaware that Kanaya and Rose whisper furtively about what it means. All he focuses on is Karkat, timelines, and staying alive. Two of those things became related, he realizes one day, but the thought is fleeting, and he hardly registers it.  
  
The days Karkat holes himself up in his room, Dave tries his hardest to get him to come out by pulling out the big guns, the harsh, yet real truths that make even his skin crawl sometimes, when his conscious is intact. It almost always works, and when it doesn't he feels completely rejected, and he doesn't understand why. When Gamzee wanders in and the sounds of sobs erupts from the room, Dave  _burns_ , burns with jealousy.  
  
It doesn't register with him how strange this is, but what does is the way Karkat looks at him, with utter loathing in his eyes and Dave's heart retches and reaches at the same time, because he's only human. Loathing is something he may have gotten often when he was younger(buried memories, buried away), but it's never been like that, where something lurks under the surface of that loathing, a lust for something that Dave doesn't know.  
  
When the years hit their halfway mark and then some, the trolls change, just a little bit. Eyes change, skin changes, horns grow darker, minimal things mostly, but only Karkat shoots upwards and becomes tall and spindly, and Dave is surprised because has he always had that rough face? It used to be young, they all used to be young, he supposes, but  _his_  used to be much more young.  
  
Karkat isn't the only one who changes though, Dave knows because he feels it in his bones, the age of other timelines making him grow as well. The push and pull of all the timelines hooked to his body, the snapping of the dead and the tug of the living, it intensifies only with time and for a while he takes his time away, as far away from Karkat as he can get, because looking at time moving so fast hurts when you can see it happening in someone else and it's natural, but when you realize that time moves faster for you  _unnaturally_ , that you will never have 'normal' time again, it feels like someone has punched you in the gut and ripped out your insides while they were at it.  
  
Dave hides away for a time, and this time it's Karkat who comes to his door and scratches at it, completely pissed off, hissing that Dave is a coward and a wimp, and Dave _hates_  him, hates him _so much._  But he also knows that he caused this, by trying his best to piss Karkat off everyday for a fucking year and a half, and if it's not karma working Dave doesn't know what else it is. He hates himself for it, for causing something like this, something that hurts him when it shouldn't.  
  
It's when Karkat says he'll tell everyone, John and Jade included, about the way he cries in the shower, that's when he decides to come out. He can't hide from time anyway, and Karkat, how would he ever ruin Karkat if he couldn't stand to look at him?  
  
But that moment in that room, it disrupts his peaceful ruination, and he finds himself wondering if what he wanted was hatred or attention, and he's horrified. He's completely and utterly horrified.  
  
His words aren't the same, they don't follow the  _pulse_ , and Karkat gets angry at him and Dave knows why, because in a world like theirs a routine is comfort. But he can't, can't bring himself to hurt Karkat the same way he used to because he knows what his motives are, to get  _attention_ of all things, and it disgusts him, how weak and young and  _naive_ he feels whenever he realizes it.  
  
He doesn't anticipate Karkat following him around, being worked into a rage until he's slammed on the wall and tastes something new and different and alien, literally alien. He can taste the hate that radiates, the pure and clean, ironically enough, desire to damn him to Hell, and what can he do but respond with desperation and confusion and something that's not hate, because it was almost never hate, it was supposed to be  _friendship_  but  _damn him to_   ** _Hell_** _and **back**_ , he took it too far and now it's turned into this.  
  
When Karkat pulls away his eyes seem to whir, and he snarls but his movements are soft and it confuses the both of them, and Dave bolts. He bolts out of there, because he can't take this, not now, not ever. He doesn't want to.  
  
He scrambles and he's so out of his comfort zone that he doesn't even bother to look cool as he runs, he doesn't even bother to care, he just runs and runs and runs until he can lock the door to his room, not thinking about the stupefied look on Karkat's face when he had pulled away. He curls onto his makeshift bed and tries not to think about anything at all, because pain runs through his veins like it's his blood.  
  
He knows what relationship that was for a troll, but that's not the one he wants to be in, that's not what he wanted at all, and it hurts so much to realize that. And he curses because he brought it all onto himself, he hadn't realized early enough and this is what he got.

  
When he wakes up, the night is still and quiet, and he wonders, with a tiredness, if he had done something differently, would things have gone on differently? Probably not, no, but still, a thought that stings. He thinks and thinks and decides that he won't let this go on, because it's bad for the both of them. He can't allow it to go on, for the sake of his wavering sanity and the rest of the meteor inhabitants, who have grown just as accustomed to the sounds of bickering, the back and forth being the background noise that reassures that they're not alone.   
  
He'll have to face Karkat and explain. Explain how humans can't do the quadrant thing, or at least, not him, especially when the feelings are the opposite anyways. It won't be hard, he thinks. It won't be.   
  
Except it will be, and he knows, oh how cruel the world can be.

**Author's Note:**

> Also an older fic I figured I'd post here.


End file.
